“You see, Miss Caroline, you must understand them. Respect their feelings. They’ve got to know you for a friend. They know I’ll shelter them against extremes of heat and cold. It’s practical really to give them the best conditions for constructing the combs and rearing the young. Oh, I’ve learned a lot. Trial and error, you might say. I reckon now I must have the most contented apiary in Cornwall.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“My bees have nothing to fear. They rely on me and I rely on them. They know they’ll be looked after when the weather’s too bad for them to forage for themselves. One day I’ll show you how I feed them through wide-mouthed bottles full of syrup. That’s when it gets cold though. They mustn’t have too much moisture. When I boil the sugar I put a little vinegar in it. That prevents it crystallizing. Oh, I’m being tiresome, Miss Caroline. Once get me on to the subject of bees and I don’t know when to stop.”

“I find it very interesting. When can I actually look at the hives?”

“I’ll speak to them tonight. I’ll tell them all about you. I’ll say there’s a sympathetic soul … They’ll understand. Mind you, they’d soon find out for themselves.”

I thought he was a little too fanciful, but he interested me and I took to calling on him when I passed. Sometimes I went into the lodge, at others I had a little chat at the door.

Cousin Mary was rather pleased. “It isn’t everybody who’ll take the trouble to show interest in him. He’s a good man. I call him our Scottish Saint Francis. He was the one who was always looking after the animals, wasn’t he? You know that. Of course you do.”

I felt now that I had three good friends—Cousin Mary, Jago Landower and Jamie McGill, and I was beginning to enjoy life in Cornwall. I could scarcely believe that it was such a short time ago when I had been dreading coming here.

Cousin Mary talked to me about the past when my father and Aunt Imogen used to stay at Tressidor for their summer holidays.

“The two brothers didn’t get on very well, my father and your grandfather, that is. My father used to laugh and say, ‘He thinks he’s going to get Tressidor Manor for his son. He’s going to have a bit of a surprise.’ “

“I know how my father felt about that,” I said.

“Yes. I’d never give up Tressidor. It’s mine … till the day I die.”

I asked her what she thought about the Landowers. Could it really be true that they might have to sell?

“There are rumours,” she replied. “Have been for a long time. It will break the old man, because it’s his fault, you see. They’ve had gamblers in the family before but he’s the one who’s brought it all to a head. If Paul had been born a little earlier it might have stopped the rot. I’ve heard he really cares for the place and has a flair for management and might have had a chance of pulling the place round. The trouble is not only the old man’s debts but the fact that the house needs instant repairs. Oh, it’s folly not to take these things in time.”

“I believe Jago is very upset.”

“I daresay. But that’s nothing to what his elder brother will be. Jago is young enough to recover.”

“Is Paul so much older?”

“Paul is a man.”

“Jago is nearly seventeen.”

“A boy really. They’ve brought it on themselves though. If it had been an act of God, as they call it, one could have felt more sorry for them.”

“But I think people suffer more through misfortunes which have come about through their own fault, Cousin Mary.”

She looked at me rather approvingly, I thought, and patted my hand.

Later she said: “Glad you came. Enjoyed having you.”

“That sounds like a goodbye speech to me.”

“I hope I shan’t have to make one of those to you for a long time to come.”

Cousin Mary and I were certainly getting fond of each other.

In due course Jamie McGill took me out to introduce me to the bees. He covered my head with an extraordinary bonnet which tucked into my bodice and had a veil over my face for me to see through. I wore thick gloves. Then he took me out. I must say it was rather terrifying to have the bees buzzing round me. They buzzed round him too and some of them alighted on him. They did not sting though.

He said: “This is Miss Caroline Tressidor. I told you about her. She wants to learn about you. She’s staying with her cousin for a while and she’s a friend.”

I watched him take the combs out of the hive and I was amazed that they allowed him to do this. He was talking to them all the time.

Afterwards we went into the house and I was divested of the strange garments.

“They’ve accepted you,” he said. “I know by their buzzing. / told them, you see, and they trust me.”

The bees’ acceptance of me made a change in our relationship. Perhaps because the bees trusted me, he did. He became more open about himself. He told me that he was sometimes homesick for his native Scotland. He longed to see the lochs and the Scottish mists. “Different from these down here, Miss Caroline, just as the hills are. Ours are grand and craggy—awesome at times. I long for them, aye, that I do.”

“Do you ever think of going back?”

He looked at me with horror. “Oh no … no. I could never do that. You see … there’s Donald. It’s because of Donald … and what he is … well, that’s why I had to leave … get away … as far as I could. I was always afraid of Donald. We grew up side by side.”

“Your brother?”

“We were so alike. People didn’t know us apart. Which was Donald … which was Jamie? No one knew … not even our mother.”

“You were identical twins.”

“Donald’s not a good man, Miss Caroline. He’s really bad. I had to get away from Donald. There. I’m boring you with things you don’t want to know about.”

“I’m always interested in people. I like to hear their stories. I find them most interesting.”

“I can’t talk of Donald … not what he did. I have to shut it right out of my mind.”

“Was he very bad?”

He nodded. “There now, Miss Caroline, you’ve got to know my bees this afternoon.”

“I’m glad they accepted me as a friend. I hope you do, too.”

“I knew you were a friend right from the first. He leaned towards me and said: “Forget what I told you about Donald. I spoke out of turn.”

“I think it helps to talk, you know.”

He shook his head. “No, I have to forget Donald. It has to be as though he never was.”

And I had to resist the urge to ask questions about Donald but I could see that speaking of him had already shaken Jamie McGill and that he was beginning to reproach himself for having talked of his brother.

After that one occasion he never mentioned him, although I did make several attempts to steer the conversation in that direction, but each time I was skilfully diverted, and I came to the conclusion that if I tried to get him to talk of his brother, I should no longer be welcome in the lodge.

I was writing quite frequently to Olivia. Writing to her was like talking to her and I greatly looked forward to receiving her letters.

I gathered that life went on much as usual. She was mostly in the country. After the Jubilee celebrations there would be nothing for her to come to London for.

Miss Bell wrote once. Her letter was full of information which told me nothing. She had had a safe journey home; Olivia and she had started on Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The weather had been exceptionally warm. Such matters did not interest me.

There was one letter from Olivia which was different from the others.

“Dear Caroline,” she wrote,

“I do miss you so much. They are talking now about my coming out. I shall soon be seventeen and Papa has told Miss Bell that he thinks I should be making my debut into society. I dread it. I hate the thought of those parties and meeting people. I’m no good at it. You would do very well. There’s nobody here to talk to really … Miss Bell says it is to be expected and she is sure that if only I will make up my mind all will be well, it will.

“Mama has never come back. She never will. I thought she had just gone away for a little while, but nobody speaks of her and when I mention her to Miss Bell she changes the subject as though it is something shameful.

“I wish Mama would come back. Papa is more stern than ever. He is mostly in London and I am in the country, but if I ‘come out’ I shall have to be there, shan’t I? Oh, I do wish you would come home.

“When are you coming back? I asked Miss Bell. She said it would depend on Papa. I said, ‘But surely Papa wants to see his own daughter.’ And she turned away and said, ‘Caroline will come back when it is right and proper in your father’s eyes for her to do so.’

“I thought that so odd. It is all so mysterious, Caroline, and I’m scared of going into society.

“Do write often. I love hearing about the bees and that quaint man at the lodge, and about the Landowers and Cousin Mary. I think you are liking them all rather a lot. Don’t like them more than you like me, will you? Don’t like Cornwall more than you like home.

“See if you can get Cousin Mary to send you home. Perhaps she could write to Aunt Imogen or something.

“Remember I do miss you. It wouldn’t be half as bad if you were home.

“Your affectionate sister, Olivia Tressidor.”

I thought a great deal about Olivia and wished that she could join me in Cornwall and share in this carefree absorbing life into which I had stepped.

Sometimes I used to feel that it was going on forever. I should have known better than that.

There were times when Jago Landower would lapse into a melancholy mood. I guessed he was really troubled, as this was quite alien to his nature.